She Fell Among Thieves

by Yates, Dornford

  I shall never forgive myself, but I was still wondering why she should swing her pick, when its head sank into the base of the other’s skull.

  So I saw bloody murder committed – to cover the crime to come. I confess that I fled from the pleasance – and moved with my chin on my shoulder for half a mile…

  I crossed the Cirque des Morts and took the way to the road which Jenny and I had taken a week before.

  At last I came to the spur which masked the bend of the road: and when I had climbed over this and down to the bank, I sat down with my back to a beech-tree, to take some rest.

  And there I sat until Vanity Fair went by – at a quarter past two. I knew it was she, of course: but as she went by, I leaped down, to look at her number-plate. Sure enough, it was that of the car that had taken Lafone.

  The eagles were gathering.

  I walked down the road to the siding, two miles away.

  As Carson rose out of the shadows –

  ‘Bring up the Rolls,’ I said. ‘I’ve a job to do.’

  ‘You saw her go by, sir?’

  I nodded.

  ‘We’ve plenty of time.’

  Twenty minutes later we ran into sleeping Gobbo and stopped by the only house which was showing a light.

  As I got out of the car –

  ‘Turn her round,’ said I. ‘And if you should hear a car coming, sound your horn.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  As before, I walked into the office, to see the same grey-haired gendarme behind the desk…

  ‘Will you rouse the sergeant?’ I said. ‘I’ve just seen a murder done.’

  The sergeant came.

  ‘Now look here,’ said I. ‘Statements and things can wait. The point is to catch the murderess – whilst you have time.’

  The sergeant agreed, and his fellow took a cap from a peg.

  ‘Less than two hours ago a woman murdered a man before my eyes. I will tell you where she did it, and drive you two-thirds of the way. The body lies where it fell – in an open grave. In an hour or two’s time the woman will return to the spot, to fill the grave in. If you are there, in hiding, you will, of course, be able to…watch her at work. And later, if you require it, I’ll make any statement you like.’

  Two minutes later I ushered them into the Rolls.

  As I took my seat by Carson –

  ‘This by the way,’ I said, ‘is my cousin’s car. If you’d like to look at her papers…’

  But the sergeant waved them away.

  ‘If you please, sir, describe this woman and tell us exactly how the murder was done.’

  I did as he asked…

  I set them down at the spot where I had rested, at the bend of the road: then I set them on their way to the circus and told them of the fall and the cleft and the pleasance beyond.

  Whilst I was doing these things, Carson was turning the Rolls: and five minutes later he backed her into the siding and round a bend out of sight of the Carlos road.

  It was now a quarter to four, and since Marc might be expected from four o’clock on, we took the French car from the siding and berthed her a furlong ahead by the side of the way. We chose a place where the road was very narrow, where two cars could barely have passed: and we berthed her four feet from the edge, as drivers who know no better will sometimes do. Unless and until she was moved, no car could go by.

  I left her key in the switch, but I opened her bonnet and turned the petrol off, letting her engine run till it fainted for lack of fuel. Then I switched it off and left her – for Marc to find.

  Ten or twelve paces away, towards the siding, a clump of bushes was clothing the mountain-side. We took our seats behind them, Carson and I, and there I gave him his orders and told him very briefly what was to come.

  He was a splendid servant, and because he knew that I did not feel like talking, he never asked a question in all those hours: and I often think that my silence laid upon him a burden he should not have borne, for he had played his part in the drama and had played it uncommonly well.

  So we sat behind the bushes, while the sun came up in splendour, to flush the heads of the mountains and kiss the face of the landscape we knew so well.

  And then, at last, came Marc…at a quarter past five. His brakes went on, and he stopped directly below us. And I heard him let out a curse as he left the Rolls.

  He left her engine running and stepped to the other car. And when he had glanced inside her, he cursed her driver again and flung open a door.

  As he took his seat inside her, I opened a door of the Rolls…

  As a hare in her form, Jenny was lying asleep in a nest of rugs. Only her face was showing, and her golden hair was all tumbled, and her lashes looked very long against the bloom of her cheeks. I put my face close to hers. Her breathing was steady and even: her breath was sweet. So I knew that her sleep was natural – and thanked my God.

  I turned to see Carson slide into the seat Marc had left.

  Marc, of course, was attempting to start the French car…

  As Carson closed his door, I lifted Bell’s head. He was sunk down beside the driver, and might have been dead. His breath reeked of chloroform.

  ‘Carry on,’ I said. ‘Don’t disturb Miss Jenny, but get him out in the air as quick as you can.’

  I closed the door, and Carson took the Rolls backwards without a word.

  I watched her steal round a bend. Then I stepped to the side of the road, leaned against a boulder and folded my arms…

  Hoping, I suppose, against hope, Marc continued to use his self-starter – of course, in vain. But at last he knew it was hopeless and, using excusable language, he erupted into the road.

  ‘Well, Marc,’ said I, quietly.

  As well he might, the fellow stared upon me, as though I were not of this world. Then he turned his head very slowly, to gaze at the place in the road where the Rolls had stood…

  I thought he would never look round, but at last he turned again, to find me standing before him within arm’s length.

  ‘You filthy blackguard,’ said I, and hit him between the eyes.

  I must have hit harder than I thought, for though he was standing four feet from the side of the car, the back of his head hit a window and shattered the glass. To my content, however, he did not fall…

  If the man was tired, so was I, and I thrashed him without compunction until he could not stand up. And then I held him up against the side of the car and ‘very near knocked his head off’, as Bell would have said. And when my arms were weary, I lugged him to the edge of the road and kicked him down the mountain with all my might.

  Since he could no longer see, I suppose he thought I was launching him into space, for he let out a scream of terror that warmed my heart. Then he met the ground and pitched headlong… In spite of the frantic efforts which I would not have thought he could make, he rolled and slid and tumbled for a hundred and fifty feet, to fetch up against a boulder, to which he clung like a madman, as though to slide any further must cost him his life.

  And that was as much as I saw.

  I gave the French car petrol and backed her down to the siding without delay.

  Bell was still unconscious, and Carson and I, between us, put him in Mansel’s Rolls.

  And Jenny, too, was sleeping, with a smile on her lovely lips.

  A sudden impulse struck me, and I turned to the side of the road. Some little wild flowers were blowing between the grey of the rocks, and the dew was still painting their beauty and sweetening their faint perfume. Quickly I pulled nine or ten and bound them into a posy as well as I could. Then I laid it in Jenny’s lap, and hoped that she would see it as soon as she waked.

  As I closed the door upon her –

  ‘Do all you can for her, Carson. But on no account leave the thicket until I come. Tell her I’m bringing some breakfast.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’ He put out his hand. ‘This is Bell’s, sir. I think you ought to be armed.’

  ‘Very well.’ />
  I took the pistol and slid it into my coat.

  I entered Mansel’s Rolls and took my seat at the wheel.

  ‘Are you all right for petrol, Carson?’

  ‘Yes, sir. The tank’s half full.’

  ‘Then you get off now. I want to see you go.’

  When Carson, with Jenny behind him, had taken the road to Gobbo, I, with Bell behind me, drove up to the bridle-path.

  Some moments before she saw me, I saw Vanity Fair.

  The hag was consumed with impatience, for now it was six o’clock.

  The car was very silent, and she neither saw nor heard it until it was very close. But, as I say, I saw her. And I saw how she twisted her hands, and savaged her underlip.

  And then she looked round – and a hideous light of triumph leaped into her eyes, for though the car was Mansel’s, it might have been mine.

  So for a long moment…

  And then the light faded, and the eyes rounded into a stare.

  As I left the car, she stepped back, with a hand to her breast.

  With my eyes upon hers –

  ‘Good morning,’ I said. I inhaled. ‘What beautiful air. You know, I think it’s purer than that of Jezreel.’

  I could see that her lips were moving, but no sound came.

  I leaned against the door of the car and folded my arms.

  ‘Yesterday evening,’ I said, ‘you were good enough to give me some news. Now I have some to give you. I trust – but without much hope – that it will be as useful to you as yours was to me. That Marc is not here is my fault. But for me he would have been here forty minutes ago.’

  Somehow she found her voice.

  ‘Who let you out? Acorn?’

  I laughed in her face.

  ‘Lafone,’ said I.

  ‘Lafone?’

  ‘Yes,’ said I. ‘She left a broom-stick behind, and I flew out of the window and over the Col de Fer.’

  The jest seemed to do her good. The strength returned to her face, and the steel to her eyes.

  ‘And my…pretty…spoons?’

  ‘Will not be melted this morning. The treasure you meant to bury…is not available.’

  By my words I might have unveiled the Gorgon’s head. The woman seemed to turn into stone. I saw the flesh freeze upon her face: her eyes took on the sightless look of a statue’s: and for more than a minute I swear that she never drew breath.

  Then a tremor ran through her, and she shivered back into life.

  ‘I liked you,’ she said. ‘And because I liked you, Chandos, I let you live.’

  ‘Do you suggest,’ said I, ‘that I’m in your debt?’

  ‘I never suggest. Because I liked you, I spared you.’

  ‘Did you send Jean – to spare me?’

  The woman moistened her lips.

  ‘Because I liked you, I sent him to – warn you off.’

  I raised my eyebrows.

  ‘Was Julie another of your favourites?’

  She started ever so slightly, and after a moment a hand went up to her mouth. Both hand and mouth were unsteady, and I knew that at last I had shaken her iron control.

  At length –

  ‘Are you a policeman?’ she said.

  I shook my head.

  ‘Then who are you to judge me?’

  ‘I do not judge you,’ I said.

  ‘If I break the law, that is the law’s affair.’

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  ‘It amused me to make it mine.’

  The contemptuous phrase stung her. I saw her eyes burn in her head.

  ‘By what authority, Chandos?’

  I looked her full in the face.

  ‘By one you should recognise, madam. That of my will.’

  There was a little silence.

  Then –

  ‘I hope Marc suffered,’ she said, ‘before he died.’

  ‘When last I saw him,’ I said, ‘he was still alive.’

  She frowned.

  ‘And Jean?’ she said. ‘And Luis?’

  ‘Have left your service,’ I said.

  She sighed. Then she lowered her hand and regarded its palm.

  ‘You could have been my grandson, and yet you have brought me down. It’s written here, of course – in the lines of my hand. But I would not have it so. I could not believe that Fate would mock me like that – and I twisted another meaning out of the lines. Do you believe in palmistry, Chandos?’

  ‘No more than you do,’ I said. ‘If you did, you would be afraid to look at the palm of your hand.’

  She looked up at that.

  ‘Only a fool,’ she said, ‘would have spoken like that. And there lies your strength. You not only seem a fool, but you are a fool. That’s why I couldn’t believe that you were the Jack that was going to kill the giant.’

  ‘For all that, you took certain precautions.’

  ‘I didn’t put you to death,’ said Vanity Fair.

  I had still one card to play: but I did not know how to play it, and so I turned to the car.

  As I opened the door –

  ‘Just now,’ she said, ‘I told you that the lines in my hand declared that a man less than half my age would bring me down. And I told you that I would not believe them – but that was less than the truth. I did not want to believe them: but their declaration made me uneasy, and so – I had Gaston watched.’

  I looked at the woman sharply, but her eyes were fast on her palm.

  ‘Why Gaston?’

  ‘Because the lines insisted that the man who brought me to ruin would be my son-in-law.’

  I shall always believe that she was speaking the truth. There is, I think, no doubt that prophecy is to be found in the lines of the hand: and though it does not follow that she was not making believe, yet it was in fact to watch Gaston that Mansel had been engaged.

  I regarded her curiously.

  True or false, Vanity Fair had some object in making such a statement to me. Yet she was not seeking information. If she had sought information, her eyes would have been upon mine.

  ‘I can’t understand it,’ she murmured, knitting her brows…

  And then an idea seemed to strike her – a happy idea.

  In an instant she was transfigured, and all the gifts she had lost or cast or trampled came back for one fleeting moment to take up their shining roles.

  Small wonder I stared upon her. Before my eyes she had put on incorruption – an incorruption I knew.

  The eager lift of her head, the stars in her eyes, the light of her countenance, the way of her parted lips – there was Jenny, standing before me, with her charm welling out like a fountain – to overwhelm all my hate.

  Her voice was sweet and breathless.

  ‘Will you…let me look at your hand?… I know what’s there – now… But I would just like to see it…before you go out of my life.’

  I took my hand from the door and inspected its palm. I knew what was there – now, too. Somewhere there it was written that I was to marry the daughter of Vanity Fair.

  The secret, in that strange cipher, had lain there for thirty years. It had lain in her hand far longer. Yet of all the hours of her life, this was the hour appointed for her to read it aright.

  Revolving this last and most fantastic trick of Fortune, I almost forgot her request. But when I had thought for a moment, I made up my mind to grant it – because it was Jenny that had made it – not Vanity Fair.

  I looked up suddenly.

  ‘Madam,’ I said – and stopped dead.

  She seemed to be adjusting her sleeve.

  In a blinding flash I saw the pit she had digged – and my foot on the edge. Once my hand was before her, a flick of her wrist and I should be dead within two minutes of time.

  If her hope was black, the way she had sought to fulfil it was blacker still. She had called back the soul she had lost, to lure me into the shambles: she had called up the spirit of Jenny, to make me lay my head on the block.

  White to the lips wit
h fury, I played my last card.

  ‘Your request is refused.’

  I saw her stiffen. All her grace fell away. Treachery twisted her lips and the hungry spirit of Murder leaned out of her eyes.

  I continued deliberately.

  ‘I extracted a drop from that syringe on the night that you lent it to Jean. I had a wire from the analyst three days ago.’ I looked her up and down. ‘Just now you had the impertinence to call me a fool. Maybe I am, but those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw bricks. And I’d rather be a fool that can smile than a bloody-minded butcher that’s short of a sheep.’

  ‘Billingsgate!’ spat Vanity Fair.

  ‘Good enough for Smithfield,’ said I, and entered the Rolls.

  I went about and drove off.

  That I had worn borrowed plumes I most frankly admit. What glory there was was Mansel’s. But that I dared not tell her, in case he was still in the field.

  Nearly four hours had gone by.

  The heat of the day had come in, but the meadow at the back of the thicket was sweet and cool, for the trees, which were tall and thick-leaved, were laying an apron of shadow upon the grass. Now and again I could hear the low of a cow or the drone of a distant car, but the silence was mostly stippled by the pipe and the flutter of birds and the speech of the running water that hemmed the edge of the sward.

  Bell, who had come to his senses, was sleeping a natural sleep by the side of the track which came to an end in the thicket some thirty yards off. Carson was ten miles off, sitting up in the mouth of a loft, with Mansel’s Rolls beneath him and field-glasses up to his eyes. From where he sat he could watch his master’s window – the window of Mansel’s room in the Château Jezreel. And Jenny was sitting beside me, remembering Amaryllis and smiling upon a grasshopper who was plainly content with the landing which he had made on her knee.

  It was but three days since I had seen her, and yet in that time she had aged. At least, so it seemed to me. When I had left Anise, she might have been seventeen. But today she seemed full-grown and twenty years old.

  ‘I wish,’ said Jenny, ‘you’d say why you sent for me.’

  ‘I’ll tell you one day,’ said I.

  ‘Tell me now.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘One day, I promise, Jenny.’

  My lady tilted her chin.